Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
The four Moors didn't come into the Bolognese decks until 1725.

The replacement of the 'Papi' by 'Mori' came about in 1725 by the intervention of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Ruffo. At that time, Bologna, although very proud of its ancient liberties, fell within the Papal States, but, by an agreement of 1447, enjoyed considerable autonomy. In 1725 Canon Luigi Montieri of Bologna produced a geographical Tarocchino pack: the body of each trump card gave geographical information ... What annoyed the Legate, Cardinal Ruffo, was that on the Matto Bologna was described as having a "mixed government" (governo misto). Ruffo ordered Montieri's pack publicly burned; Montieri and everyone concerned with its production were arrested. However the Legate quickly came to realise that to proceed against them on this ground would arous deep resentment in the city. He therefore had the prisoners rapidly released, and, to save face, demanded instead that the four 'Papi' be replaced by four Moorish satraps, and the Angel by a Lady (Dama). The first change was accepted, though the second was ignored, and Montieri's pack was reissued with the Moors instead of 'Papi'; moreover, Moors were henceforth used in all Bolognese Tarot packs.

(Dummett and McLeod, "History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack" (Mellen Press, 2004) pp. 263-264)

Long before 1725 and the priest Montieri the Master PW had 4 Moors in his deck and also French cards showed Moors and the Moro's Milan had a moorish faible, and the most exalted dance of the time was the Moreske.
And Alfonso d'Este's is said to have shown the dark face of his great-grandma and one of the Medici is said to have been dark, too, and Shakespeare found Othello "based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565" (wiki) an interesting topic. Griraldo Cinthio lived 1504-1573, a little late for a "disciple of Boccacchio".

After a long pause in this thread, I made the decision to change the first post of this of the first for an overview to the Minchiate / Germini game. For the moment it looks like this:

IN WORK

Well, it's November 27, 2016 ... the old post at this place is moved to "Post 2". The thread was active from 08 Dec 2009, 12:01 till 19 Aug 2010, 15:30.
Only the first and 2nd post were changed. The idea is to improve the first post as a sort of introduction.

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Meanwhile a lot of things have happened around the game Germini / Minchiate. Franco Pratesi has restarted his researches on playing cards (November 2011) and Minchiate became a longer time his major topic. Trionfi.com once organized his various contributions to this point (till end of 2013):

In the context of the discussion in the Rosenwald Tarocchi thread ...viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1105&start=40#p18785
... I made some research on the Minchiate poem of 1552. The poem structures Minchiate in the domains of 4 procuresses (as already demonstrated in this thread long ago):

I am said to be a procuress of little things,
so I will have to speak, from the twenty-three down,
the unlucky life of every whore.
This looks like a great fatigue to me,
because my own daughter Sandra is named
and she is dirty, lousy and loathsome.
I must take care of nine
and I turn the one that is named the twenty-two.

The number sequence 19-18-17-16 mirrors the number sequence 20-21-22-23

Major symbols for the 4 procuresses:

Caritas has a flame
Fides has a cup (associates water) ... but that's not clear in Minchiate
Prudentia has a viper (symbol of earth)
Hope is accompanied by an anchor (the anchor associates a ship and a sail and this associates air; occasionally Hope is presented with wings) ... but that's clear in Minchiate

In the typical Minchiate the flame of Caritas and the viper of Prudentia are present ....

Pulci is passing the summer in the country and writes to Lorenzo that he is craving to see him again to the point that, had he only a horse, he would come there to play together at different games and win by large. The
exact text of the relevant sentence is, Pure, se havessi cavallo, ho sì gran voglia di rivedertich’io verrei costì per isvisarti alle Minchiate, a passadieci, asbaraglino, come tu sai ch’io ti concio. The only difficult term, from a language point of view, is the verb isvisare for svisare, meaning not only to win a match but to disfigure the face with punches. The sense is obviously metaphoric, stressing the higher level of Pulci as a player. The three mentioned games are Minchiate, which needs no comment for the moment; Passadieci, a common name for different games played with dice only (with the aim to or not to surpass ten), with dice and board (with the peculiarity of counting doubles twice), and perhaps even with cards; Sbaraglino, a favourite boardgame of the backgammon family whose popularity lasted for several centuries. In the same letter some common programmes to compose verses are also recalled.